GRADE 7, UNIT 1
INDEPENDENT LEARNING SELECTIONS
The Independent Learning selections will reside in the Interactive Student Edition in time for back-toschool 2016. Students will be able to engage with these texts by highlighting, taking notes, and
responding to activities directly in the Interactive Student Edition.
Until that time, the selections are available in this document. This unit includes:
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Lineage by Margaret Walker
Family by Grace Paley
“Gotcha Day” Isn’t a Cause for Celebration by Sophie Johnson
The Grandfather and His Little Grandson by Leo Tolstoy
Bridging the Generational Divide Between a Football Father and a Soccer Son by
John McCormick
Water Names by Lan Samantha Chang
An Hour With Abuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Lineage • Margaret Walker
Poetry
About the Poet
Poet and novelist Margaret Walker (1915–1998) was born in Birmingham, Alabama,
daughter of a minister and a music teacher who nurtured her interest in poetry and
philosophy. At the age of 19, Walker graduated from Northwestern University and began
a career as a writer. In addition to earning a master of arts in 1940 and a PhD in 1965.
Walker received numerous honorary degrees and fellowships in recognition of her
literary contributions.
BACKGROUND
For Margaret Walker, her family history was her greatest source of inspiration. Her
grandmother took care of Walker and her siblings as children and told them stories about
their great-grandmother. Walker’s 500-page epic novel, Jubilee, was based on her greatgrandmother’s life during slavery and immediately following the Civil War.
Lineage
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.1
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins2 rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
1. toil n. hard physical work.
2. veins n. vessels that carry blood to the heart.
Family • Grace Paley
Poetry
About the Poet
Grace Paley (1922–2007) was raised in the Bronx, in New York City. Her parents spoke
both Russian and Yiddish, and this dual culture as well as the city itself inspired many of
her writings. She described herself as a "combative pacifist" and spoke out against
American militarization in anti-war protests. Paley taught writing at Sarah Lawrence
College from many years, and her work has won many awards.
BACKGROUND
Paley's family immigrated to America from Russia during the Russian Revolution of
1905. During this period, many Russians had become dissatisfied with the social and
political system of their country. Protestors were initially met with violent resistance by
the government, but continued unrest eventually convinced Tsar Nicholas II to institute
the Fundamental Laws, which functioned as a constitution.
Family
My father was brilliant
embarrassed funny
handsome
1
my mother was plain serious
principled
kind
my grandmother was intelligent
lonesome for her
other life
her dead children
silent
my aunt was beautiful bitter
angry
loving
I fell among these adjectives in earliest childhood
and was nearly buried with opportunity
some of them stuck to me
others
finding me American and smooth slipped away
1. principled adj. moral; knowing right from wrong.
“Gotcha Day” Isn’t a Cause for Celebration • Sophie Johnson
Blog Post
About the Author
Sophie Johnson was a junior at Malibu High School in Malibu, California, when she
wrote and published this article. She has written several articles for the Huffington Post.
BACKGROUND
Between 1999 and 2013, United States families adopted over 200,000 children from
overseas, including 70,000 children from China. Most children are less than two years old
when adopted, but many are older, and have some memories of life in their birth country.
In this piece, an author reflects on the mixed emotions she has about her own “Gotcha
Day,” the day she was adopted.
“Gotcha Day” Isn’t a Cause for Celebration
I was five and a half years old when my parents adopted me in China and brought me to
my new home to America. As my mom always says, I eagerly ran into her arms and truly
have stayed there for the past 12 years. She is my mom, my best friend, the woman I
admire most in the world. But for the longest time, my family marked that day we met in
China as something known in adoption circles as “Gotcha Day.”
Lots of families celebrate the day they met their adopted child and became a family. But
while I appreciate the love and everything else my parents give me, Gotcha Day can be a
mixed bag—one that leaves kids like me sad and confused. What’s missing from Gotcha
Day is this: The acknowledgement that adoption is also about loss.
While adoptive parents may be celebrating a long-awaited child finally entering their
lives, that child in their arms has experienced abandonment or has been surrendered for
reasons they may never know or understand. It’s a lot to process. And sometimes while
adopted kids are processing it, their feelings of loss override their feelings of happiness.
Gotcha Day is one of those times when we think about our past and how little some of us
actually know about it. We think about our biological parents and wish we knew them
and could ask them why they didn’t keep us. We think about what our lives would be
like, where would we be, what our futures would look like, had there been no Gotcha
Day.
It’s been said that adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where everyone expects
the victims to be grateful and appreciative. I am grateful and appreciative, but I also want
to remind people that someone’s happiness over building their family through adoption
may also be someone else’s sorrow over losing their child for circumstances they
couldn’t control. Gotcha Day feels like a day of fake smiles if we don’t acknowledge that
it’s also about loss, not just gain.
Gotcha Day • 1
In my family, we now celebrate Family Day. My parents show my brother and me the
photos of when we first met. We talk about how she fed me a big bag of candy that I
promptly threw up on her in the cab ride back to the hotel. I tell her every Family Day
how she shouldn’t have let our guide throw away the yellow sweatsuit that I vomited on.
It was the last thing my orphanage caregivers dressed me in and was a tangible part of a
past that has many unknowns. (I forgive her; she was jet-lagged1 and the guide took away
the dirty clothes and just put them in the trash knowing my mom had a suitcase full of
new things for me to wear from America.)
Every Family Day, we laugh about my little brother’s Elvis2 sneer and bewilderment at
the events of the day we got him. We laugh about how—I was 7 at the time and had been
living in America for two years—I took one look at him and began asking my mom if we
could get a puppy instead. We remember how while my parents were busy filling out
paperwork and he and I sat coloring and my dad threw a ball at his head. My mom
screamed and my brother, without even looking up from his coloring, raised his left hand
and caught the pitch perfectly. “A leftie! Yes!!” shouted out my dad, a life-long Cubs3
fan. I’m not sure if the Chinese officials thought it was funny, but we sure laugh about it
every Family Day.
I love our Family Day. It celebrates our love for one another plain and simple. And we
always end it by lighting a candle for our first families and going outside to talk to the
moon.
1. jet-lagged adj. exhausted from long-distance travel.
2. Elvis Elvis Presley, wildly popular singer and actor, also known for his smiling sneer.
3. Cubs Major League Baseball team of Chicago.
Gotcha Day • 2
The Grandfather and His Little Grandson • Leo Tolstoy
Short Story
About the Author
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was born into a wealthy family in Russia and inherited the
family estate. By the time he was fifty, he had written some of the world’s most famous
novels. In midlife, Tolstoy began to reject his life of luxury. He surrendered the rights to
many of his works and gave his property to his family. This world-famous writer died
alone in a remote train station in Russia.
BACKGROUND
"The Grandfather and His Little Grandson" is originally a German fairy tale collected by
the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812. Many writers, including Leo Tolstoy,
have retold different versions of this story over time.
The Grandfather and His Little Grandson
The grandfather had become very old. His legs would not carry him, his eyes could not
see, his ears could not hear, and he was toothless. And when he ate, he was untidy. His
son and the son’s wife no longer allowed him to eat with them at the table and had him
take his meals near the stove. They gave him his food in a cup. Once he tried to move the
cup closer to him and it fell to the floor and broke. The daughter-in-law scolded the old
man, saying that he damaged everything around the house and broke their cups, and she
warned him that from that day on she would give him his food in a wooden dish. The old
man sighed and said nothing.
One day the old man’s son and his wife were sitting in their hut, resting. Their little son
was playing on the floor. He was putting together something out of small bits of wood.
His father asked him: “What are you making, Misha?” And Misha said: “I’m making a
wooden bucket. When you and Mommie get old, I’ll feed you out of this wooden
bucket.”
The young peasant and his wife looked at each other and tears appeared in their eyes.
They were ashamed to have treated the old man so unkindly, and from that day they
again ate with him at the table and took better care of him.
Bridging the Generational Divide Between a Football Father and a
Soccer Son • John McCormick
Blog Post
About the Author
John McCormick is a blogger, author, and regular contributor to the Huffington Post's
Parent Section, where he provides insights and advice to fellow parents. McCormick is
also a speaker, frequently visiting schools, fairs, and libraries to advocate for storytelling.
BACKGROUND
American football originates from the sports of soccer and rugby. According to many
metrics, it is the most popular sport in America. But it is soccer (known as football in
most countries besides the United States) that reigns as the most popular sport across the
globe. The World Cup is among the most-watched sporting events in the world. Today,
soccer has gained popularity in the United States as well.
Bridging the Generational Divide Between a Football Father and a Soccer Son
Nowhere is the generation gap between my 16-year-old son Will and me wider than when
it comes to football. Football, for me, is that most American of sports, pitting helmeted
warriors colliding with one another across the line of scrimmage.1 Football for Will is of
the global variety, the “beautiful sport” consisting of touch passes and bending corner
kicks, commonly referred to on this side of the Atlantic as soccer.
Will plays on his high school’s JV soccer team. Last weekend, he invited a few of his
teammates for a sleepover at our home after their Friday night game. The next morning,
Will and his teammates gathered around the television to watch an English Premiere
League soccer game. Comparing players on their respective fantasy league soccer teams,
they rattled off the names of players I’d never heard of . . . Mesut Özil, Yaya Touré and
Mathieu Flamini, to name just a few.
While impressed with their knowledge of EPL players, I wondered how many
professional football players they could identify, so I asked them to name as many
players they could from the National Football League.
The first five were easy for the boys—“RGIII, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Joe Flacco,
Richard Sherman.”
An awkward pause ensued before another boy finally piped up with “Ray Rice.” I
groaned.
Bridging the Generational Divide • 1
When my son and his friends finally bogged down at eight, I asked, “Why do you know
so much about soccer but so little about football?”
The gauntlet had been thrown down, and my son quickly took up the challenge. “Soccer
is way more fun to watch and play than football,” he said. “There are so many
commercial timeouts during football games on TV that you can die of old age waiting for
play to resume.”
I had to give him that one. While I had lost one battle, I wasn’t about to concede the war.
I told him that football had more offense, and that watching scoreless soccer games for
ninety minutes was as dry as watching C-Span2 with the volume off.
Back and forth the arguments flew like headers3 on a soccer pitch.
Will: Soccer is followed by millions more fans than football and is the most popular sport
in the world.
Dad: The 2014 Super Bowl is still the most watched in U.S. TV history.
Will: Soccer is a more fluid4 game, requiring skill, endurance and grace.
Dad: Football has all that, too, but the players don’t act like they’ve been mortally
wounded every time an opposing player brushes against them!
Will: Soccer enthusiasts are the most passionate fans in the world, singing songs and
standing on their feet for entire matches.
Dad: Ever been to a Seahawks game in Seattle or a Broncos game in Denver?
My son got in the last word. “Soccer is a sport whose time has come. It’s the sport of my
generation.”
I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with my own father when I was my son’s
age. My father, the starting catcher on his college baseball team, spoke passionately of
why baseball is, and always will be, America’s national pastime. I argued just as
fervently that football was now America’s national game. I even recall telling my dad
that football was a sport whose time had come.
Every generation has its own collective character, its likes and dislikes, its passions and
indifferences. While baseball was tops in my dad’s day and football in mine, many youth
today are embracing soccer as the new “in” sport. Maybe it’s time for me to take a new
perspective on “the beautiful game.”
My son and I came up with a compromise. I watch an EPL game with my son on
Saturday mornings and he watches an NFL game with me on Sunday afternoons. Not
only do we have the chance to spend more time together, but we teach each other the
Bridging the Generational Divide • 2
finer points of futbol vs. football. Along the way we even discovered that football is
derived from soccer, with rugby providing the missing link. Who knew that both sports
were in the same family? Just like in ours.
1. line of scrimmage imaginary line used at the beginning of play to separate two football
teams.
2. C-Span television network that broadcasts political proceedings and other public
affairs programming.
3. headers n. shots or passes in soccer made by hitting the ball with the head.
4. fluid adj. showing a smooth, easy style.
Bridging the Generational Divide • 3
Water Names • Lan Samantha Chang
Short Story
About the Author
Writer and novelist Lan Samantha Chang (b. 1965) grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin,
learning about China from her Chinese immigrant parents. She has received many
awards, including a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship. Chang is currently the director of the
prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
BACKGROUND
The Yangtze River is one of the longest rivers in the world, flowing 3,915 miles across
China, and emptying out into the East China Sea. Throughout Chinese history, the
Yangtze River has been a vital source of life, providing food and enabling irrigation,
transportation, and industry. Yangtze is the river's westernized name - in China it is
called Chang Jiang, meaning “Long River.”
Water Names
Summertime at dusk we’d gather on the back porch, tired and sticky from another day of
fierce encoded quarrels, nursing our mosquito bites and frail dignities, sisters in name
only. At first we'd pinch and slap each other, fighting for the best—least ragged—folding
chair. Then we'd argue over who would sit next to our grandmother. We were so close
together on the tiny porch that we often pulled our own hair by mistake. Forbidden to
bite, we planted silent toothmarks on each others' wrists. We ignored the bulk of house
behind us, the yard, the fields, the darkening sky. We even forgot about our grandmother.
Then suddenly we'd hear her old, dry voice, very close, almost on the backs of our necks.
“Xiushila! Shame on you. Fighting like a bunch of chickens.”
And Ingrid, the oldest, would freeze with her thumb and forefinger right on the back of
Lily's arm. I would slide my hand away from the end of Ingrid’s braid. Ashamed, we
would shuffle our feet while Waipuo calmly found her chair.
On some nights she sat with us in silence. But on some nights she told us stories, “just to
keep up your Chinese,” she said.
“In these prairie crickets I often hear the sound of rippling water, of the Yangtze River,”
she said. “Granddaughters, you are descended on both sides from people of the water
country, near the mouth of the great Chang Jiang as it is called, where the river is so
grand and broad that even on clear days you can scarcely see the other side.
Water Names • 1
“The Chang Jiang runs four thousand miles, originating in the Himalaya mountains1
where it crashes, flecked with gold dust, down steep cliffs so perilous and remote that
few humans have ever seen them. In central China, the river squeezes through deep
gorges, then widens in its last thousand miles to the sea. Our ancestors have lived near the
mouth of this river, the ever-changing delta, near a city called Nanjing, for more than a
thousand years."
“A thousand years," murmured Lily, who was only ten. When she was younger she had
sometimes burst into nervous crying at the thought of so many years. Her small insistent
fingers grabbed my fingers in the dark.
“Through your mother and I you are descended from a line of great men and women. We
have survived countless floods and seasons of ill-fortune because we have the spirit of the
river in us. Unlike mountains, we cannot be powdered down or broken apart. Instead, we
run together like raindrops. Our strength and spirit wear down mountains into sand. But
even our people must respect the water.”
She paused. "When I was young, my own grandmother once told me the story of Wen
Zhiqing’s daughter. Twelve hundred years ago the civilized parts of China still lay to the
north, and the Yangtze valley lay unspoiled. In those days lived an ancestor named Wen
Zhiqing, a resourceful man, and proud. He had been fishing for many years with trained
cormorants, which you girls of course have never seen. Cormorants are sleek, black birds
with long, bending necks which the fishermen fitted with metal rings so the fish they
caught could not be swallowed. The birds would perch on the side of the old wooden boat
and dive into the river.” We had only known blue swimming pools, but we tried to
imagine the sudden shock of cold and the plunge, deep into water.
“Now, Wen Zhiqing had a favorite daughter who was very beautiful and loved the river.
She would beg to go out on the boat with him. This daughter was a restless one, never
contented with their catch, and often she insisted they stay out until it was almost dark.
Even then, she was not satisfied. She had been spoiled by her father, kept protected from
the river, so she could not see its danger. To this young woman, the river was as familiar
as the sky. It was a bright, broad road stretching out to curious lands. She did not fully
understand the river's depths.
"One clear spring evening, as she watched the last bird dive off into the blackening
waters, she said, 'If only this catch would bring back something more than another fish!’
"She leaned over the side of the boat and looked at the water. The stars and moon
reflected back at her. And it is said that the spirits living underneath the water looked up
at her as well. And the spirit of a young man who had drowned in the river many years
before saw her lovely face.”
We had heard about the ghosts of the drowned, who wait forever in the water for a
living person to pull down instead. A faint breeze moved through the mosquito screens
and we shivered.
Water Names • 2
“The cormorant was gone for a very long time." Waipuo said, "so long that the fisherman
grew puzzled. Then, suddenly, the bird emerged from the waters, almost invisible in the
night. Wen Zhiqing grasped his catch, a very large fish, and guided the boat back to
shore. And when Wen reached home, he gutted the fish and discovered, in its stomach, a
valuable pearl ring.”
"From the man?" said Lily.
"Sshh, she’ll tell you."
Waipuo ignored us. “His daughter was delighted that her wish had been fulfilled. What
most excited her was the idea of an entire world like this, a world where such a beautiful
ring would be only a bauble!2 For part of her had always longed to see far away things
and places. The river had put a spell on her heart. In the evenings she began to sit on the
bank looking at her own reflection in the water. Sometimes she said she saw a handsome
young man looking back at her. And her yearning for him filled her heart with sorrow
and fear, for she knew that she would soon leave her beloved family.
“‘It’s just the moon, said Wen Zhiqing, but his daughter shook her head. ‘There’s a
kingdom under the water,’ she said. ‘The prince is asking me to marry him. He sent the
ring as an offering to you.' 'Nonsense,’ said her father, and he forbade her to sit by the
water again.
“For a year things went as usual, but the next spring there came a terrible flood that swept
away almost everything. In the middle of a torrential rain, the family noticed that the
daughter was missing. She had taken advantage of the confusion to hurry to the river and
visit her beloved. The family searched for days but they never found her."
Her smoky, rattling voice came to a stop.
"What happened to her?" Lily said.
"It’s okay, stupid,” I told her. She was so beautiful that she went to join the kingdom of
her beloved. Right?
"Who knows?” Waipuo said. “They say she was seduced by a water ghost. Or perhaps
she lost her mind to desiring.”
“What do you mean?" asked Ingrid.
"I’m going inside,” Waipuo said, and got out of her chair with a creak. A moment later
the light went on in her bedroom window. We knew she stood before the mirror,
combing out her long, wavy silver-gray hair, and we imagined that in her youth she too
had been beautiful.
Water Names • 3
We sat together without talking. We had gotten used to Waipuo’s abruptness, her habit of
creating a question and leaving without answering it, as if she were disappointed in the
question itself. We tried to imagine Wen Zhiqing’s daughter. What did she look like?
How old was she? Why hadn't anyone remembered her name?
While we weren't watching, the stars had emerged. Their brilliant pinpoints mapped the
heavens. They glittered over us, over Waipuo in her room, the house, and the small city
we lived in, the great waves of grass that ran for miles around us, the ground beneath as
dry and hard as bone.
1. Himalaya Mountains mountain range in South Asia.
2. bauble (BAW buhl) n. object of little value.
Water Names • 4
An Hour With Abuelo • Judith Ortiz Cofer
Short Story
About the Author
Born in Puerto Rico in 1952, Judith Ortiz Cofer grew up in both Puerto Rico and New
Jersey, where her father was stationed in the United States Navy. She was introduced to
the storytelling tradition at her grandmother's house in Puerto Rico.
BACKGROUND
Nursing homes are places where senior citizens can live together in a community, with a
staff of nurses to help take care of them. Meals and other services are provided by the
staff, and seniors can spend their time relaxing and socializing with each other.
An Hour With Abuelo
“Just one hour, una hora, is all I’m asking of you, son.” My grandfather is in a nursing
home in Brooklyn, and my mother wants me to spend some time with him, since the
doctors say that he doesn’t have too long to go now. I don’t have much time left of my
summer vacation, and there’s a stack of books next to my bed I’ve got to read if I’m
going to get into the AP English class I want. I’m going stupid in some of my classes, and
Mr. Williams, the principal at Central, said that if I passed some reading tests, he’d let me
move up.
Besides, I hate the place, the old people’s home, especially the way it smells like
industrial-strength ammonia1 and other stuff I won’t mention, since it turns my stomach.
And really the abuelo always has a lot of relatives visiting him, so I’ve gotten out of
going out there except at Christmas, when a whole vanload of grandchildren are herded
over there to give him gifts and a hug. We all make it quick and spend the rest of the time
in the recreation area, where they play checkers and stuff with some of the old people’s
games, and I catch up on back issues of Modern Maturity. I’m not picky, I’ll read almost
anything.
Anyway, after my mother nags me for about a week, I let her drive me to Golden Years.
She drops me off in front. She wants me to go in alone and have a “good time” talking to
Abuelo. I tell her to be back in one hour or I’ll take the bus back to Paterson. She
squeezes my hand and says, “Gracias, hijo,”2 in a choked-up voice like I’m doing her a
big favor.
I get depressed the minute I walk into the place. They line up the old people in
wheelchairs in the hallway as if they were about to be raced to the finish line by
orderlies3 who don’t even look at them when they push them here and there. I walk fast to
room 10, Abuelo’s “suite.” He is sitting up in his bed writing with a pencil in one of those
An Hour with Abuelo • 1
old-fashioned black hardback notebooks. It has the outline of the island of Puerto Rico on
it. I slide into the hard vinyl chair by his bed. He sort of smiles and the lines on his face
get deeper, but he doesn’t say anything. Since I’m supposed to talk to him, I say, “What
are you doing, Abuelo, writing the story of your life?”
It’s supposed to be a joke, but he answers, “Sí, how did you know, Arturo?”
His name is Arturo too. I was named after him. I don’t really know my grandfather. His
children, including my mother, came to New York and New Jersey (where I was born)
and he stayed on the Island until my grandmother died. Then he got sick, and since
nobody could leave their jobs to go take care of him, they brought him to this nursing
home in Brooklyn. I see him a couple of times a year, but he’s always surrounded by his
sons and daughters. My mother tells me that Don Arturo had once been a teacher back in
Puerto Rico, but had lost his job after the war. Then he became a farmer. She’s always
saying in a sad voice, “Ay, bendito!4 What a waste of a fine mind.” Then she usually
shrugs her shoulders and says, “Así es la vida.” That’s the way life is. It sometimes
makes me mad that the adults I know just accept whatever is thrown at them because
“that’s the way things are.” Not for me. I go after what I want.
Anyway, Abuelo is looking at me like he was trying to see into my head, but he
doesn’t say anything. Since I like stories, I decide I may as well ask him if he’ll read
me what he wrote.
I look at my watch; I’ve already used up twenty minutes of the hour I promised my
mother.
Abuelo starts talking in his slow way. He speaks what my mother calls book English. He
taught himself from a dictionary, and his words sound stiff, like he’s sounding them out
in his head before he says them. With his children he speaks Spanish, and that funny
book English with us grandchildren. I’m surprised that he’s still so sharp, because his
body is shrinking like a crumpled-up brown paper sack with some bones in it. But I can
see from looking into his eyes that the light is still on in there.
“It is a short story, Arturo. The story of my life. It will not take very much time to read it.”
“I have time, Abuelo.” I’m a little embarrassed that he saw me looking at my watch.
“Yes, hijo. You have spoken the truth. La verdad. You have much time.”
Abuelo reads: “’I loved words from the beginning of my life. In the campo5 where I was
born one of seven sons, there were few books. My mother read them to us over and over:
the Bible, the stories of Spanish conquistadors and of pirates that she had read as a child
and brought with her from the city of Mayagüez; that was before she married my father, a
coffee bean farmer; and she taught us words from the newspaper that a boy on a horse
brought every week to her. She taught each of us how to write on a slate with chalks that
An Hour with Abuelo • 2
she ordered by mail every year. We used those chalks until they were so small that you
lost them between your fingers.
“’I always wanted to be a writer and a teacher. With my heart and my soul I knew that I
wanted to be around books all of my life. And so against the wishes of my father, who
wanted all his sons to help him on the land, she sent me to high school in Mayagüez. For
four years I boarded with a couple she knew. I paid my rent in labor, and I ate vegetables
I grew myself. I wore my clothes until they were thin as parchment. But I graduated at
the top of my class! My whole family came to see me that day. My mother brought me a
beautiful guayabera, a white shirt made of the finest cotton and embroidered by her own
hands. I was a happy young man.
“’In those days you could teach in a country school with a high school diploma. So I went
back to my mountain village and got a job teaching all grades in a little classroom built
by the parents of my students.
“I had books sent to me by the government. I felt like a rich man although the pay was
very small. I had books. All the books I wanted! I taught my students how to read poetry
and plays, and how to write them. We made up songs and put on shows for the parents. It
was a beautiful time for me.
“’Then the war came,6 and the American President said that all Puerto Rican men would
be drafted. I wrote to our governor and explained that I was the only teacher in the
mountain village. I told him that the children would go back to the fields and grow up
ignorant if I could not teach them their letters. I said that I thought I was a better teacher
than a soldier. The governor did not answer my letter. I went into the U.S. Army.
“I told my sergeant that I could be a teacher in the army. I could teach all the farm boys
their letters so that they could read the instructions on the ammunition boxes and not
blow themselves up. The sergeant said I was too smart for my own good, and gave me a
job cleaning latrines.7 He said to me there is reading material for you there, scholar. Read
the writing on the walls. I spent the war mopping floors and cleaning toilets.
“’When I came back to the Island, things had changed. You had to have a college degree
to teach school, even the lower grades. My parents were sick, two of my brothers had
been killed in the war, the others had stayed in Nueva York. I was the only one left to
help the old people. I became a farmer. I married a good woman who gave me many
good children. I taught them all how to read and write before they started school.’”
Abuelo then puts the notebook down on his lap and closes his eyes.
“Así es la vida is the title of my book,” he says in a whisper, almost to himself. Maybe
he’s forgotten that I’m there.
For a long time he doesn’t say anything else. I think that he’s sleeping, but then I see that
he’s watching me through half-closed lids, maybe waiting for my opinion of his writing.
I’m trying to think of something nice to say. I liked it and all, but not the title. And I think
An Hour with Abuelo • 3
that he could’ve been a teacher if he had wanted to bad enough. Nobody is going to stop
me from doing what I want with my life. I’m not going to let la vida get in my way. I
want to discuss this with him, but the words are not coming into my head in Spanish just
yet. I’m about to ask him why he didn’t keep fighting to make his dream come true, when
an old lady in hot-pink running shoes sort of appears at the door.
She is wearing a pink jogging outfit too. The world’s oldest marathoner, I say to myself.
She calls out to my grandfather in a flirty voice, “Yoo-hoo, Arturo, remember what day
this is? It’s poetry-reading day in the rec room! You promised us you’d read your new
one today.”
I see my abuelo perking up almost immediately. He points to his wheelchair, which is
hanging like a huge metal bat in the open closet. He makes it obvious that he wants me to
get it. I put it together, and with Mrs. Pink Running Shoes’s help, we get him in it. Then
he says in a strong deep voice I hardly recognize, “Arturo, get that notebook from the
table, please.”
I hand him another map-of-the-Island notebook—this one is red. On it in big letters it
says, POEMAS DE ARTURO.
I start to push him toward the rec room, but he shakes his finger at me.
“Arturo, look at your watch now. I believe your time is over.” He gives me a wicked
smile.
Then with her pushing the wheelchair—maybe a little too fast—they roll down the hall.
He is already reading from his notebook, and she’s making bird noises. I look at my
watch and the hour is up, to the minute. I can’t help but think that my abuelo has been
timing me. It cracks me up. I walk slowly down the hall toward the exit sign. I want my
mother to have to wait a little. I don’t want her to think that I’m in a hurry or anything.
1. ammonia n. liquid used for cleaning that has a very strong smell.
2. Gracias, hijo (GRAH see uhs EE ho) Spanish for “Thank you, son.” Hijo also means
“child.”
3. orderlies n. hospital workers who do nonmedical tasks such as moving patients around
or cleaning.
4. bendito (vehn DEE toh) Spanish for “blessed.”
5. campo (KAHM poh) Spanish for “open country.”
6. “Then the war came, . . .” The United States entered World War II in 1941, after the
bombing of Pearl Harbor.
7. latrines (luh TREENZ) n. toilets.
An Hour with Abuelo • 4